Technical problem areas are presented that may adversely affect the reliability of extended spaceborne operation of a hydrogen maser frequency standard in the Navstar Global Positioning System. Included are failures that have occurred in past maser designs even though such failures are now understood and could be circumvented in future designs. It is concluded that all the failure mechanisms are amenable to space qualification engineering. The greatest potential problem areas are dissociator stability and atom production, storage bulb lifetime in a space radiation environment, and radiation damage to the electronics subsystem, particularly sensors.
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